munroburton wrote:Decades earlier in his career, when he was a Captain, Byng was harassing merchant shipping. He impounded Manticoran merchantmen and their crews without trial on trumped-up charges of smuggling.

Then the Manticoran Foreign Office had the temerity to protest, which resulted in Byng being censured and knocked down the SLN's promotion lists by a few years.

I wonder if Byng actually did catch them smuggling? It could have been some of Hauptman's freighters.

The case as stated in Storm from the Shadows is that the merchant spacers spent two years in jail without being convicted of anything- which really doesn't sound like a genuine smuggling case. If you've genuinely found contraband, there's no reason to not have a trial. If you want to harass the nasty Manties, you get a friendly judge to throw the book at them.

Then Byng compounded the problem by refusing to listen to hints (from higher up the food chain) that it was time to let the Manties go.

ONI believed his behaviour was connected to his own family having shipping interests in the area.

Jonathan_S wrote:The US "super frigates" were the USS Constitution (launched in 1797) & her sisters and that was War of 1812/Napolionic Wars. The American Colonies did purpose build some warships during the Revolution but they were few, of conventional design, and the perponderence of the American ships engaged were along the lines of armed merchantmen acting under Letter of Marque. Most not much more than pirates in the view of the Crown as they were sent out by, at best, the individual colonies as commerce raiders or privateers. Still, they did cause the British Navy a lot of difficulty, mostly by picking off transports and supply ships and causing the Navy to have to send raiding attacks against suspected or known bases of operations.Few wanted to go up against a British warship anywhere near the same capability in a stand-up fight but they played merry hell with most of whatever else they encountered. Major source of supplies for the Rebel Army.

Another important point is the amount of the Royal Navy eventually employed in keeping the 5 Frigates at bay. By 1815, very major US port had at least 2 Liners (usually 70 guns, sometimes more), several 50-60 gun 4th rates, and a variety of 24-38 gun Frigates and Brigs offshore blockading the port. Every patrol had to be at least 3 ships, including 1 50-70 gun ship in it's formation, so if a super frigate did get loose, it couldn't run down a lone 24-38 gun ship that it ran across. This doesn't mention the fleet that was building up to strike New Orleans, or the Squadrons being deployed to the pacific to stop the Essex. Or the dozen or so 50-70 gun liners which were pulled out of service to be cut down to make Razees, that could (on paper) compete with a US super frigate on almost a 1:1 basis. I don't have firm numbers, but at least 30% of HRN was deployed to stop essentially 6 ship commands (and the dozens of other Privateers - but none of them could face a 38 gunner and survive)

As far as assymetrical warfare goes, The Super Frigates did their job, with each holding up ~10x their weight just on the fear of what a loose Super Frigate could do. Unfortunately, the RN could afford what it took to stop them - for a few years.

The Constitution and her sister ships were designed to out run anything that could take them and outfight anything that could catch them.

The biggest British frigates of the era were 38 gun, 18 pounder. That means they were built to carry and withstand the recoil of their main armament (the broadside) which in this case is the long 18 pounder cannon. They carried carronades (usually 24 pounders),too, but they weren't counted in the rating of the vessel.

The Constitution was built to carry 30 long 24 pounder guns in the broadside and was rated as a 44 gun ship. Along with 20 32 pounder carronades.

So, they not only carried more guns but heavier ones with a longer range than anything that could be considered of equal rate to them. Going all Nelson-esque when engaging one wasn't the smartest move either since they are built heavier and the 32 pounder carronades wasn't referred to as a "Smasher" for nothing. The British frigates were outclassed in every way when it came to armament.

At the time, single gun deck ships didn't carry guns that heavy. The 24's were the realm of the big 2 Decker's like the 50 and 74 gun ships of the line. The 74 gun ships carried 32's on their lower gun decks that could out range the 24 in the proper sea conditions. The problem is, the 2 Decker's were pretty slow where the US frigates were known to be fast sailers. The Constitution hit 12 knots or more with a clean bottom.

The 18's carried by some of the newer British frigates was considered to be heavy. Many of their frigates were still armed with 12's. An older British 32 or 28 gun, 12 pounder frigate really didn't have any business tangling with the American 44's. Even the newer 18 pounder frigates were at a distinct disadvantage.

Theemile wrote:Another important point is the amount of the Royal Navy eventually employed in keeping the 5 Frigates at bay. By 1815, very major US port had at least 2 Liners (usually 70 guns, sometimes more), several 50-60 gun 4th rates, and a variety of 24-38 gun Frigates and Brigs offshore blockading the port. Every patrol had to be at least 3 ships, including 1 50-70 gun ship in it's formation, so if a super frigate did get loose, it couldn't run down a lone 24-38 gun ship that it ran across. This doesn't mention the fleet that was building up to strike New Orleans, or the Squadrons being deployed to the pacific to stop the Essex. Or the dozen or so 50-70 gun liners which were pulled out of service to be cut down to make Razees, that could (on paper) compete with a US super frigate on almost a 1:1 basis. I don't have firm numbers, but at least 30% of HRN was deployed to stop essentially 6 ship commands (and the dozens of other Privateers - but none of them could face a 38 gunner and survive)

As far as assymetrical warfare goes, The Super Frigates did their job, with each holding up ~10x their weight just on the fear of what a loose Super Frigate could do. Unfortunately, the RN could afford what it took to stop them - for a few years.

The Constitution and her sister ships were designed to out run anything that could take them and outfight anything that could catch them.

The biggest British frigates of the era were 38 gun, 18 pounder. That means they were built to carry and withstand the recoil of their main armament (the broadside) which in this case is the long 18 pounder cannon. They carried carronades (usually 24 pounders),too, but they weren't counted in the rating of the vessel.

The Constitution was built to carry 30 long 24 pounder guns in the broadside and was rated as a 44 gun ship. Along with 20 32 pounder carronades.

So, they not only carried more guns but heavier ones with a longer range than anything that could be considered of equal rate to them. Going all Nelson-esque when engaging one wasn't the smartest move either since they are built heavier and the 32 pounder carronades wasn't referred to as a "Smasher" for nothing. The British frigates were outclassed in every way when it came to armament.

At the time, single gun deck ships didn't carry guns that heavy. The 24's were the realm of the big 2 Decker's like the 50 and 74 gun ships of the line. The 74 gun ships carried 32's on their lower gun decks that could out range the 24 in the proper sea conditions. The problem is, the 2 Decker's were pretty slow where the US frigates were known to be fast sailers. The Constitution hit 12 knots or more with a clean bottom.

The 18's carried by some of the newer British frigates was considered to be heavy. Many of their frigates were still armed with 12's. An older British 32 or 28 gun, 12 pounder frigate really didn't have any business tangling with the American 44's. Even the newer 18 pounder frigates were at a distinct disadvantage.

As noted in the series, quantity has a quality all its own. The American ships NEVER played a strategic role during the War of 1812. There were too few of them. The were more for propaganda victories.

They were also important in showing how problematic British ship design was. Had the French built their navy like the Americans did, there might not be a Nelson statue in London.

ldwechsler wrote:As noted in the series, quantity has a quality all its own. The American ships NEVER played a strategic role during the War of 1812. There were too few of them. The were more for propaganda victories.

They were also important in showing how problematic British ship design was. Had the French built their navy like the Americans did, there might not be a Nelson statue in London.

But they didn't.

Though quality also counts. The USS Chesapeake was only a half-sister to the USS Constitution (36 guns vs 44) but still a dangerous ship for a British 18 lbs frigate to tangle with. But HMS Shannon (24 guns) caught her coming out of Boston harbor and proved that a crack RN gunnery ship, fully worked up, was more than a match for what was on paper a stronger USN frigate that hadn't had yet had the extensive gunnery drilling that Shannon's captain demanded.

The Royal Navy blockades of France during the Napoleonic wars denied their navy the ability to sail and work up their ships. Even if they were more strongly built and armed (and the construction of a US super=frigates wasn't really heavier that what a British or French ship of the line would have) the lack of drill and experience would likely tell badly against the French...

ldwechsler wrote:As noted in the series, quantity has a quality all its own. The American ships NEVER played a strategic role during the War of 1812. There were too few of them. The were more for propaganda victories.

They were also important in showing how problematic British ship design was. Had the French built their navy like the Americans did, there might not be a Nelson statue in London.

But they didn't.

You are partially correct - their actions didn't didn't have a strategic impact. But the threat of their possible impact did.

As I mentioned above, The Royal navy had to change it's patrol patterns - just in case 1 Humphries Frigate did break out. They had to blockade every US harbor - heavily - in case a Frigate did break out they could attempt to run it down and deprive it of another harbor to return to. and hey ha to pull the 50-74 gunners from service to make Razees in an attempt to match them. The US, with 2 partialy complete liners, caused dozens of liners to be relegated to patrol status (jobs usually done by frigates and Brigs).

In reality, the Essex's actions was the only successful blue water naval campaign the US had in the war of 1812, (There also were the successful battles of Lake Erie and Lake Champlain, but those didn't divert many British naval resources.) but the diversion of forces required to handle the "Super Frigate" problem had an impact on the outcome of the war - and Britain's ability to fight the other ongoing conflicts.

******RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."

ldwechsler wrote:As noted in the series, quantity has a quality all its own. The American ships NEVER played a strategic role during the War of 1812. There were too few of them. The were more for propaganda victories.

They were also important in showing how problematic British ship design was. Had the French built their navy like the Americans did, there might not be a Nelson statue in London.

But they didn't.

You are partially correct - their actions didn't didn't have a strategic impact. But the threat of their possible impact did.

As I mentioned above, The Royal navy had to change it's patrol patterns - just in case 1 Humphries Frigate did break out. They had to blockade every US harbor - heavily - in case a Frigate did break out they could attempt to run it down and deprive it of another harbor to return to. and hey ha to pull the 50-74 gunners from service to make Razees in an attempt to match them. The US, with 2 partialy complete liners, caused dozens of liners to be relegated to patrol status (jobs usually done by frigates and Brigs).

In reality, the Essex's actions was the only successful blue water naval campaign the US had in the war of 1812, (There also were the successful battles of Lake Erie and Lake Champlain, but those didn't divert many British naval resources.) but the diversion of forces required to handle the "Super Frigate" problem had an impact on the outcome of the war - and Britain's ability to fight the other ongoing conflicts.

The story of the War of 1812 is essentially that American troops stood up to the British and it was clear they would not retake the country.

They were a bit busy with Napoleon and probably regretted the war with the US pretty much from the beginning.

Remember that a peace treaty was agreed to before the Battle of New Orleans.

The US navy did not play much of a role and basically was not a world class navy for nearly a century after that.

Weird Harold wrote:Colonel was often an elected position, so probably only commissions through Major were for sale.

That's what comes of not reading an article properly on my part (and part remembering others). No, you couldn't buy a full Colonel's commission (and command of a Regiment). You could, however, purchase a Lieutenant-Colonel's commission and command of a Battalion within a Regiment.

quite possibly a cat wrote:Also this brings me to another benefit of getting a surrender and capturing the Manties: Henke won't fire on Bygn if he has Manties on board!

I'm not sure I'm ready to go over this special bridge. After all, she had to try to convince him to surrender ... so in this case, maybe she would've opted for something like what happened later in Zunker: One salvo against all BCs but aimed at their wedges ... But if Byng would've been ready to surrender after such a demonstration we'll never know. Nor will we know if Mike would've been ready the risk of sacrificing their people in case Byng would've been remained unconvinced ...

Backtracking the conversation a bit, you're forgetting a rather important 'minor' detail here that I bolded for you Eagle.

At the time of the New Tuscany Incident, Henke had no podnoughts, only Nike class battlecruisers which are not able to properly utilize Apollo MDM's. And Henke fired from around DDM range, which is too far for precision hits.

Laserhead missiles aren't the most precise, and we also have the Zunker incident which chronologically happened after Crandall got smashed at Spindle, where they also fired from DDM range (although they were Sag-C's) as part of Fireplan Folley Alpha

His people were doing their best, fighting with frantic professionalism to overcome the fatal shortcomings of their doctrine and training in the fleeting minutes they had. They weren’t going to succeed, and he knew it, but they weren’t going to simply sit there, paralyzed by terror, either, and he felt bittersweet pride in them even as he cursed himself for having walked straight into this disaster.

But how could I have known? How could I really have known? And even if I had —

And then the Manticoran missles burst past the inner edge of the counter-missile zone. They came driving in through the desperate, last-ditch, last-minute fire of the battlecruisers’ point defense clusters, and the laser clusters were almost as useless in the face of the Manty EW as the counter-missiles had been. They managed to pick off another twelve missiles, but that still left a hundred and sixty-three shipkillers, and Pyun felt his belly knotting solid as his ships’ executioners came boring in on the throats of their wedges. They were going to— One hundred and sixty-three Mark 16 missiles, each with the better part of thirty seconds’ time left on its drive, swerved suddenly, in a perfectly synchronized maneuver, and detonated as one.

Her tone was so disbelieving—and so affronted—that despite himself, Pyun actually felt his mouth twitch on the edge of a smile. The ops officer was staring incredulously at her displays as CIC’s dispassionate computers updated them.

It was true. It had happened so quickly, the X-ray lasers had cascaded in in such a massive tide, that it had taken Steinberg (and Pyun, for that matter) several endless seconds to grasp what had actually happened—to realize they were still alive—yet it was true.

The rear admiral would dearly have loved to believe Halo had succeeded in its decoy function. That the Manty missiles had been lured astray by his battlecruisers’ sophisticated electronic warfare systems. But much as he would have preferred that, he knew differently. No defensive system in the galaxy could have caused every single missile in an attacking salvo to waste its fury on the roofs and floors of his ships’ impeller wedges. No. The only way that could have happened was for the people who’d fired those missiles to have arranged for it to happen.

“Christ!” Captain Gilmore shook his head like a man who’d been hit one time too many. “How the hell—?” He stopped and gave his head another shake, then grimaced. “Sorry, Admiral.” Pyun only looked at him, then wheeled back towards Steinberg at the ops officer’s inarticulate sound of disbelief. She looked up and saw the admiral’s eyes on her.

“I—” It was her turn to shake her head. “Sir, according to CIC, Retaliate took one hit and Impudent took two. That’s it. That’s all!”

Sag-C's firing Mark 16s from their internal tubes, firing at 30 million kilometers, Manties being stationary and the Solarian ships advancing 'slowly' so missile and ship velocities weren't going to impact accuracy that much. And they didn't intend to hit the Solarians at all, and three hits leaked through.

Based on that, although slightly later performance, Henke definitely could not have gone for 'wedge decapitation' strikes. Even with Nike's for fire control instead of Sag-C's, and firing at 45 million km with Mark 23's. That sort of precision strike requires being in beam range, and RMN ships no longer carry small beams. Destroyers carry cruiser-weight lasers, light and heavy cruisers carry battlecruiser grasers, and battlecruisers carry superdreadnought grasers.

No RMN captain is crazy/stupid enough to try pulling an HMS Hexapuma vs Marianne and get close enough to belligerent/hostile SLN ships to use PDLC's for precision strikes either.

So to sum it all up, Henke was literally incapable of any form of non-lethal strike. When Byng flipped her off and tried to run, the only choices were headshot Byng, or massacre his entire command, which would blow up any evidence Henke needed to justify what she did.

Somtaaw wrote:So to sum it all up, Henke was literally incapable of any form of non-lethal strike. When Byng flipped her off and tried to run, the only choices were headshot Byng, or massacre his entire command, which would blow up any evidence Henke needed to justify what she did.

I question if Byng would have heed such a warning shot or just thought it was proof that Henke was not serous about fighting SLN. A warning shot only works with people who believe the next shot will not miss.

Somtaaw wrote:So to sum it all up, Henke was literally incapable of any form of non-lethal strike. When Byng flipped her off and tried to run, the only choices were headshot Byng, or massacre his entire command, which would blow up any evidence Henke needed to justify what she did.

I question if Byng would have heed such a warning shot or just thought it was proof that Henke was not serous about fighting SLN. A warning shot only works with people who believe the next shot will not miss.

Again, Byng was chosen by MAlign for a purpose. My guess is that he knew what his purpose was. Being assigned to the Frontier Fleet from Battle Fleet had to put him on notice. He was well connected and yet sent away.

He ignored all info that might have built up on the Mantie ships, even punishing an officer who brought it up.

That is one of the items that the assorted investigators on Earth are looking into.